


Good Housekeeping

by teand



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teand/pseuds/teand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters have <i>interesting</i> laundry problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Housekeeping

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ June 13th 2007. I had a dream about a fanfic contest using the title of a movie as the last line in the fic. Although it was my dream, Destina won. Which just proves my sub-conscious can recognise good stuff when it dreams it. Unfortunately, I could only read the last line of the fic...

The color in cheap t-shirts ran. Sam knew that. Sam had known that pretty much all his life given that he'd never owned a t-shirt that could accurately be called anything but cheap. To minimize the inevitable color seepage, Winchester laundry had always been sorted tonally, darks and lights. Although, as a general rule, the darks and lights thing was mostly academic since by the time they got around to sorting their laundry there were only three possible piles: health code violation, burn, salt and burn.

Most of the stuff they killed didn't so much go out with a bang as a splatter. Sam figured it was the supernatural's way of getting the last word in. He'd had demon bits – or demonic bits at least – in places those bits should never be. So had Dean. Sam knew this because Dean liked to list those places while driving back to the motel as a way of getting the first shot at the shower. For a guy who'd probably never read a book that didn't involve arcane rituals or new and exciting ways of committing mayhem, his brother had remarkable powers of description when it involved the sensation of pureed demon guts sliding slowly down his ass-crack

_"And it's got that kind of greasy feel like someone dumped a plate of chili cheese fries -- only without the fries 'cause nothing's quite that chunky – right the fuck down the back of my pants. Moving lower too, slick against the skin and kind of feels like that glistening shit that comes off snails looks. And I'd call have to call it more of a slither than a slide because there's a creepy fuckload of lateral movement. When it finally gets low enough, it starts to congeal..."_

_"Fine! Whatever! You can have the first goddamned shower! Just shut up about things congealing in your pants!"_

Sam didn't mind doing the laundry. If pressed -- by someone other than Dean – he'd even admit to enjoying an hour of peace and quiet where he could do a little reading, reading that had nothing to do with the hunt. Well, nothing to do with hunting demons anyway. Some of the women's magazines, edges curling in the humidity huffed out by a dozen dryers, had detailed instructions for hunts of a different sort. After reading COSMO's Fifteen Ways to Get the Man You Want (Even if He Doesn't Want You), he'd been so jumpy about being left alone in bars even Dean had noticed.

_"Sammy, are you cock-blocking me?"_

_"No! It's just... They know what they're doing, Dean. They may look all soft and giggly, but inside, I'm telling you, cold and calculating."_

_"Oh-kay, no more booze for you..."_

Dean preferred to do the grocery shopping. For certain values of the word "grocery". Of the two of them, he was the better cook and on those rare occasions when they were in one place long enough to get a room with a kitchenette he made a decent fry up. And, for one memorable meal, a killer spaghetti sauce – although, in all fairness, it hadn't actually killed either of them.

_"It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure sauce isn't supposed to bounce like that."_

_"Quit your bitchin'; this is the kind of food that'll put hair on your chest."_

_"Maybe if applied topically."_

That night had added a few new ways to describe things congealing in place where things weren't meant to congeal. Who'd have thought spaghetti sauce stains would be harder to get out than shifter slime? And good luck finding a detergent that could get grease, grass stains, sweat, drool, pie filling, the orange crap off cheesies, the previously mentioned spaghetti sauce, and three kinds of blood out of the same t-shirt. 

Whites – provided they could be identified as such – went into one washer. Jeans, carefully inserted to prevent the stiff denim from breaking, into another. Everything else into a third. Cold water, cold rinse. Hot water set blood stains and there were always blood stains.

As Sam carried the duffle bags into this particular laundromat he saw it not only had a stack of familiar magazines but a lopsided shelf of actual, honest to God books. Not romances either. A dog-eared copy of Chaucer. Zorba the Greek with the back cover long gone. An Elizabeth Peters mystery, pages splayed out like it had been dropped in the tub and blown dry – Jess' copy of The Two Towers had looked just like it for just that reason. An old Dick Frances mystery. Not one, not two, but three orange Penguin Publishing spines announcing P.G. Wodehouse.

It was the middle of the afternoon, hot and hazy. Outside the smudged window, the town looked identical to the small town they'd left late last night. With any luck, they'd driven a safe distance away from where they'd salted and burned the bones of a vengeful granny.

_"Come and give your old granny a kiss!" she shrieked, whirling around the grave as Dean's shovel finally clunked against the casket._

_While Dean hurriedly dumped half a box of salt onto her desiccated corpse, she stared straight at Sam, who'd had to use the shotgun twice already, and screamed, "Granny's little boy's gotten so big!"_

_Tinder dry bones burning, she'd thrown up her hands, snarled, "You never write! You never call!" and disappeared._

_Sam rubbed at the bruises on his face. "Man, for a dead old lady, she had quite the pinch going."_

_Dean rubbed a different cheek entirely and muttered, "You're telling me."_

The streets were essentially deserted. Everyone was either working or too smart to spend a hot day doing a hot chore. Sam had washers, dryers, and books to himself.

So maybe he got a little distracted while sorting the laundry. 

FYI: cold water didn't stop the color in really cheap t-shirts from running.

_"Just fucking look at me, Sam!"_

_Sam leaned against the bathroom doorframe, used the threadbare motel towel to rub water out of his hair, and looked at his brother stomping around the room in socks, t-shirt, and underwear. "Is this some new Tom Cruise phase I should be worried about?"_

_Eyes blazing, Dean slapped both hands against his chest. "Explain this!"_

_"Oh that. My new t-shirt got mixed in with the whites."_

_"What? That's it?"_

_"Yeah, that's it." Sam rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Dean, it's laundry, it's not rocket science." And he went back into the bathroom to shave._

Next time they stopped to do laundry -- and Sam had a feeling it would be sooner rather than later, that this time there'd be no waiting until the smell drove them to leave their duffle bags in the Impala for the night -- he'd pick up a bottle of bleach.

Shame really. The smell of bleach always gave him flashbacks to those zombie seniors frolicking in the over-chlorinated motel swimming pool back in Tampa Bay...

_"Dude, put down the stick. I think they're alive."_

....and, besides, who'd have guessed that Dean would look so pretty in pink.

 

\--end--


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